


Stuffy

by Paganpunk2



Category: Father Brown (2013)
Genre: Christmas, Couch Cuddles, Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Epiphanies, Fireside cuddles, Homoeroticism, Like A Hallmark Movie With Axe Murderers and Boys Kissing, Loneliness, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Masturbation, Masturbation in Shower, Past Injury, Past Relationship(s), Past Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Self-Denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28240839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paganpunk2/pseuds/Paganpunk2
Summary: While on a Christmas Eve stakeout together, Sullivan learns a secret about Sid's past that will define his - and their - future.
Relationships: Sid Carter/Inspector Sullivan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31
Collections: Early Days





	1. On This Hill You Bare Your Sorrows

**Author's Note:**

> "Respectability, regularity, and routine - the whole cast-iron discipline of a modern industrial society - have atrophied the artistic impulse, and imprisoned love so that it can no longer be generous and free and creative, but must be either stuffy or furtive."
> 
> -Bertrand Russell

Sullivan suppressed a groan as he spotted the silhouette that had beaten him to the best viewpoint. Grimacing, he closed the distance between them. “What are you doing here, Carter?” he hissed when he was near enough to project his voice directly into the figure’s ear.

Sid glanced up at him with a mild expression, the whites of his eyes glinting faintly. “Same thing as you,” he whispered. “Watching the house.” He sniffled, then patted the frosty ground beside him. “Have a sit, if you want. You’ll freeze your arse off, but at least you can lean back a bit.”

The tree under which Sid had taken up position was what made the spot prime for surveillance. It blocked the bulk of the moon’s pale glow, lessening the chances that any watcher would be visible from the domicile some hundred yards distant. It had grown here long enough that most of the soil between its spreading roots was bare, which meant that there was no grass to be left bent over as a witness to their stakeout. And, as Sid had pointed out, the trunk made an admirable backrest that any veteran of long night watches would be grateful for.

The Inspector settled down reluctantly beside him. “This is a police matter,” he rumbled, keeping his voice low. “Unless you’re planning to rob the place, you shouldn’t be here.”

“Careful, Inspector.” Another sniffle. “That almost sounded like encouragement. I might take you seriously.”

Sullivan rolled his eyes. “You would not.”

“...Well, now, there’s a surprise. I didn’t think you’d heard of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ before. Least not when it came to me.” Sniffle, sniffle.

The rebuttal had come as a surprise to Sullivan, too. He hadn’t realized he was going to say anything at all until the words were already out of his mouth. More shocking still, he realized that he’d meant them, and not only because this was the home of a suspected axe murderer and, ergo, only an idiot would try to break into it. At some point the repetitive dance of arresting Carter and then letting him go uncharged must have tired Sullivan’s accusation muscle out. “Don’t get excited. A concussed imbecile could guess that you’re here snooping for Father Brown.”

“Got it in one. You’re sharp tonight.”

Sullivan bristled. “Which is as good a reason as attempted burglary for you to spend the rest of the night in a cell,” he snapped.

Sniff. “Be warmer than sitting here. Course, you’d have to run me in yourself, unless you’ve got someone else out in this Arctic blast with you. But I don’t think you’re that cruel.” He sniffed yet again, giving Sullivan a second to process his remark. “So if you did arrest me, that’d mean there was no one watching the house for, what, an hour? Two?”

“It’s a twenty-minute walk to the station, at most,” Sullivan countered.

“Yeah, but it’s not like you’d lock me up and then come back without doing the paperwork, is it?” Sid chuckled. “You’d be sitting out here the rest of the night thinking about your incomplete files instead of paying attention if you tried that.”

Sullivan pursed his lips. How dare this...this...this snuffling whelp (ooh, yes, that was a good one) make fun of him? “Carter,” he ground out, “it is Christmas Eve. I have chosen to sacrifice my evening in the service of justice and out of regard for my men, most of whom have families to be with tonight. All of those things being the case, and in light of your point about the need for me to pay attention to what I am doing, I have nothing more to say to you.”

Puzzled uncertainty radiated from the darkness beside him. Then a faint rustle suggested a shrug. “If that makes you happy, Inspector.”

For a short while it did, in fact, make Sullivan happy. For once he felt like he’d come out of a conversation with Sidney Carter as the victor. There’d been no last jibe, no knockout insult, no victorious smirk from the younger man. There was simply compliance, followed by silence. He could watch the Wrobel farmhouse in peace and wait for his suspect to make a move. And when it was _his_ suspect, not Father Brown’s, who ventured out to dispose of the evidence that they were both sure was secreted somewhere inside the homestead, he’d even have the pleasure of seeing Carter pout. This Christmas might not turn out to be so very awful after all.

Unless, of course, Carter kept up that infernal sniffling. Sullivan was sure he could have set his watch by it. Twenty-eight seconds, twenty-nine, thirty...sniff. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty...snuffle. He bore the low snorts with gritted teeth until he was sure the sun was about to start fading out the stars. Then a glance at his wrist informed him that a mere fifteen minutes had passed, and he gave in. “Would you stop that disgusting noise?!”

Sniff. “Can’t help it. Honest.”

Remarkably, it sounded like he was telling the truth. Sullivan softened a little. He hated head congestion. It was impossible to focus properly with a nose full of mucus and too much pressure inside one’s skull. “...I’m amazed that Father Brown sent you out here to sit in the cold when you sound like that. Or that Mrs. McCarthy allowed him to do so.”

“Yeah, well, it’s Christmas. There was a vigil earlier, then there’s Midnight Mass on right now, and another Mass in the morning. He’s gotta be at the church for those, and he’s got things to do betweentimes. Anyway, I’m not actually sick.”

“So you _can_ shut up. Thank God.”

“Uh, no, not really. I’m not sick, but I still have to sniffle.” He did so again just then. “Like I said, I can’t help it.”

Sullivan sighed. “As little interest as I have in your otolaryngic woes, Carter, I’ll ask anyway; why?”

“Broken nose. A long time ago,” Sid added as Sullivan peered over at him. “You can’t tell to look at it, but something’s not right in there.” He gestured at the center of his face. “I never used to be stuffed up in the cold and dry, unless I really was sick, but since the break it happens every year around now.”

Ugh. “Terrible,” he said, honestly meaning to commiserate.

“Sorry. It sends Lady F. up the wall, too. She made me go to some special doctor about it, but he said he couldn’t do anything. So, unless she wants to drive herself to all her holiday fetes, she has to put up with it each winter, same as you do tonight.” Sniff.

“No, I meant...oh, never mind.” A brief moment of quiet passed, during which Sid snuffed again. “What about a second opinion?”

“She tried. Harley Street, that time was, which meant it was a bloody expensive ‘too bad.’ And now she’s got another one she wants me to see after New Year’s, in Oxford.” The faintest shift in the gloom indicated a head shake. “I wish she wouldn’t do that. She’s got better things to spend her money on than my cracked-up nose. ‘Specially since it’s not even like it does any good.”

“Yes, well...you’re right. She does have better things to spend her money on. But she clearly cares about you.” Sullivan detected a trace of resentment in his tone and paused to rein it in. There was no one in the world, he reflected morosely, who would pay Harley Street fees on his behalf. “So don’t be an ingrate about the way she chooses to show it.”

“I _am_ grateful. I just wish she didn’t waste so much on me. It’s not like she owes me anything. The debt runs the other way, for sure.”

Neither of them spoke for a while after that. Sid continued his sniffling, muting the sound as best he could against the fabric of his long, dark coat. It was never going to be a pleasant noise, but it was less aggravating now that Sullivan knew it really couldn’t be helped. “Is it better when you’re inside, at least?” he asked eventually.

“Nah. The cold’s only part of the problem. There’s something about dryness, too, the humidity, that does it. Hot showers help. And if I breathe in some clove water steam right before bed – Mrs. M.’s idea, that was – I can usually catch a little sleep. But I can’t sit in the shower or over the stove all day for three, four weeks a year.”

“...No. I suppose you can’t.” Jesus. Being congested in bed for a few days each winter was miserable; Sullivan couldn’t imagine going about his daily life with a stuffy nose for a month at a time. And what if Sid actually _did_ catch a cold while he was dealing with this other problem? “What...I mean, how did you...?”

“Break it?”

“Yes.” It was a prying, gossipy sort of question, better suited to either one of the women they’d just been discussing than it was to Sullivan. But it was cold, nothing was happening in the Wrobel house, and he couldn’t help but be a little curious.

“...Heh.” A black sort of amusement had come into Sid’s voice. He sniffed, then went on. “Well, you’re the Inspector, Inspector. Figure it out. I’ll give you three guesses.”

“There’s no need to poke fun at me, Carter. It was a serious question.”

“Who’s poking fun? I thought you might like a little mental exercise, that’s all. Something to get us both through this incredibly boring watch. You can even ask questions, if you want some clues.”

It _was_ boring, and cold, too. Sullivan decided to play along. He dug a little deeper against the tree at his back, grounding himself. “All right, fine. Let’s see...”

He began to review everything he knew about Sid. Juvenile delinquent; occasional black marketeer; all-around scalawag. There were roughly a million ways that someone like him could end up with a broken nose, and that was without counting things like household accidents and auto crashes. It would be best to keep his inquiries as general as possible to start and see what he could whittle his way down to from there. “Someone hit you.”

“Yeah, they did, but that’s too broad to count as an actual guess.”

“It wasn’t a guess. I’m working on the puzzle.” He mused some more. Sid spent time with both saints and sinners; knowing which side of the legal line he'd had been standing on when he was hit might clear a lot of suspects. “Was this person another criminal?“

“Oi, watch the labeling,” Sid replied, sounding slightly perturbed. “...And that’s a matter of opinion.”

“It is _not_ a matter of opinion whether someone is a criminal. They’ve either committed a crime or they have not.”

“In that case, you just set yourself way back on your guessing. Even the Father’s a ‘criminal’ under that definition.”

“Father Brown has committed multiple minor infractions just in the months I’ve been in Kembleford. Not least among those has been interfering with police business, which I don’t need to point out is the very reason why you’re here tonight. He may not have any convictions, but he is, as you stated, technically a criminal.”

“Alright, sure, but you get what I mean. _You’re_ a criminal, then. Everyone is. No one even _knows_ all the laws there are, let alone could follow them all the time. You can’t make ‘criminal’ that black-and-white of a term if you want it to actually mean anything.”

Sullivan huffed. He did have a point. “Are you aware that sometimes you argue in exactly the same way that he does?”

Sid perked up in his seat. “...Do I really?” he asked, sounding proud.

“I didn’t mean it to be a compliment. It’s galling.”

“I figured that was how you felt about it. But I’m taking it nice anyway, because no matter what you _meant,_ it’s a compliment.”

Irritated, Sullivan closed his eyes. “...How do I find myself in these situations?” he muttered. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“You giving up?”

“No. I’m simply regretting every decision in my life that led me to be under this tree tonight.”

“Oh, well, happy Christmas to you, too.”

Sniff. ...Right. Fine. “I’ll refine the question,” Sullivan said reluctantly. “Did the person have form at the time?”

“No. Or at least, I seriously doubt it.”

That was actually quite helpful. If the person in question hadn’t had a criminal record prior to breaking Sid’s nose, then it hadn’t happened during either of the short prison stints Sullivan knew he’d served back in London. "Was it a bar fight?” All sorts mixed in drinking establishments. A pub brawl with someone who was visibly more upstanding than himself might be reason enough for Sid to assume a lack of legal trouble in his opponent’s history.

“No. Wasn’t a fight at all. Just one hit, and me down for the count.”

“You’re admitting to that?”

“It’s the truth. Anyway, it’s not something the other person’s got any right to crow about, given the circumstances. Any shame’s on him, not me.”

Sullivan’s lips twitched upwards as he leapt on the free information. “Him?”

“Sure, him.” Sniff. “What, d’j’you think a lady did it?”

“Given your reputation, Carter, I’d have believed it.” Now there was an idea... “A disgruntled husband.”

“Is that a guess?” He hadn’t technically used any yet, and he could see Sid thinking that a cuckolded spouse was in the wrong for not letting his wife follow what he would probably term ‘natural urges.’

“...Yes.”

“Wrong.”

“Damn.” Time to step back for a review. “A man...no known history of convictions...capable of putting your stubborn self down with one blow...oh, was he armed in any way?”

“He was, but he didn’t use it on me. Like I said, it was one hit.”

“Armed, but he didn’t use it...in a situation where you believe that you were innocent, or at least not deserving of being hit...” Sullivan recalled something Sid had said before they started this little game. “A long time ago, yes?”

“Yeah.”

His forehead crinkled as he tried to visualize the basic biographical information in Sid’s police file. Despite a valiant effort at recall, he couldn’t come up with what he needed. “Did you know your father, Carter?”

Sid sniffled. “Bit of a rude way of putting it, but I see where you’re going. Wrong track, though.”

“...Ah.” He sank back into thought. A man, a long time ago, no form, armed but...wait. Wait, no, Sid had never said it was a _man._ He’d said it was a _him._ “Schoolyard fisticuffs,” he concluded. “Or a disagreement with another boy in whatever passes for a school where you’re from.”

“Plenty of armed kids round there,” Sid agreed. “But wrong again. Also...” He snickered. “...‘Fisticuffs’?”

Sullivan felt his cheeks warm despite the chill air that was nipping at them. “Oh, shut up.”

“Shut up? What, you have all the hints you need?”

He didn’t, but he couldn’t think of what else to ask that might clarify the situation. Sullivan went over everything once more. Sid had been young, his age seeming to fall somewhere between true childhood, when his relations and schoolmates were the likeliest people to assault him, and the point when bar fights and underworld contacts became possibilities. Whoever had hit him had been able to knock him down with one blow without using a weapon, even though they were armed. And even though they were armed, they weren’t a convicted criminal, or at least Sid seriously doubted that they were. Finally, Sid felt that he hadn’t deserved what happened. So what kind of a person...?

Sullivan drew a sharp breath. At his side, Sid let out a low, dark hum. “Yeah, you’ve got it now, don’t you?”

“It...it was a policeman.” His stomach sank as a dozen, a hundred little grimaces and glances suddenly made sense.

“Course it was.”

He wanted to refute the insinuation in that reply, but he held his tongue. “...Why did he hit you?”

“I dunno.” Sid suddenly sounded as though he regretted getting into this conversation. “I was being cheeky with him, and I guess he didn’t like that.”

“You think an officer of the law punched you in the face for being cheeky?” Sullivan asked, incredulous.

“You trying to say you haven’t thought about doing it yourself?”

“Thinking and doing are two different things. Besides, violence is very highly discouraged nowadays, even with much nastier sorts of criminal than you’ve ever been.”

“...So you’ve _never_ wanted to deck me?”

“Not for being cheeky.” In fact, now that he thought about it... “...Not ever, actually. As mad as I’ve been at you before, that’s not something that’s ever crossed my mind. It isn’t as if I enjoy hitting people.”

“Huh. Good to know.”

A long silence, not uncomfortable, rolled out. Finally, Sullivan decided he had to have more information. “...Carter?”

“Yeah?”

“Why were you being spoken to by a policeman in the first place?”

Sid sniffed, then blew out a long breath. “Some of the grocers round there had complained about missing stock. He was looking into it.”

“And were you the one taking it?”

“...Yeah. I was.”

Sullivan scoffed. Of course he had been. “I should have known you weren’t _actually_ innocent.”

He couldn’t see Sid’s face clearly in the depths of the shadows, but a flash of eye whites and the sudden flat chill in his tone gave Sullivan a good idea of the look being leveled at him. “I was twelve. Me and two others, my friends, we only had each other looking out for us. We were _hungry,_ Sullivan. We were _always_ hungry. It never stopped, that gnawing, even when we’d just eaten. Never.

“Without the war, I might never have been caught. Those grocers wouldn’t even have noticed they were missing anything if it hadn’t been for the rationing. As soon as that started up, though, they got hawk-eyed, and the police started taking food theft a lot more serious, too.

“I wasn’t taking that much each day. Just enough to keep us alive, and barely that. I thought about taking more – I thought about it a lot, because we were as good as starving and I knew I could have managed it – but I didn’t like taking anything at all. Believe it or not, I wasn’t raised to think stealing was alright. Neither were my friends. But the only other options we had were a lot worse than nicking a loaf of bread or a couple apples or a handful of meat scraps.

“I was the quickest of us, and it turned out I had a knack for making things disappear besides, so I was the one who did it. And because I was the one who did it, I was the one who got caught.

“So yeah, you’re right, I wasn’t ‘innocent,’ least not according to your stuffy, stuck-up definition. But that doesn’t mean that I deserved to have my nose broken by a grown man whose job was supposed to be to protect the weak. That doesn’t mean that I deserve to have to snuffle and snort my way through a twelfth of the rest of my life, like I’m a pig or something. And if you disagree, you can go find your own fucking tree to spend the night under.”

Sullivan gulped hard when Sid had finished. He hadn’t felt this small since the last time he’d spoken with his father. The only difference between then and now was that Sid’s anger and disgust were inarguably justified. As embarrassed as he was, though, and as much as he wanted to get away and deal with his shame privately, he didn’t move. To move would be to defend the brutality Sid had just described, and that was the last thing in the world that Sullivan was willing to do.

This time their sniffle-filled silence was tense. Several minutes into it, Sid shifted as if he was about to get up. Sullivan reached out and grabbed his elbow. “Carter. Wait. I-”

“Shut up.”

...No. He’d said a lot of less than nice things to Sid in the past, but he wasn’t going to let him walk away from this exchange without an apology. “Just let me-”

“Put,” Sid breathed fiercely, “a bleedin’ sock in it, you idiot.” He gestured towards the farmhouse that Sullivan had completely forgotten they were supposed to be watching. “...Someone’s coming out.”


	2. Through the Night I Give You Chase

Arvin Wrobel stole out of his house and headed straight into the trees at its rear, carrying a long, wrapped package easily in one hand. Sullivan tamped down a flare of triumph – Arvin had been his nominee for guilt, while Father Brown had chosen Arvin’s wife, Kate – and rose along with Sid to follow.

The other two men, both long-limbed and familiar with the forest, were able to pass through the woods with speed and stealth. Sullivan, far less experienced in dark, wild spaces and fearful of giving away their pursuit, started to fall behind almost immediately. Only the fact that Sid needed to maintain a certain amount of distance between himself and the suspect prevented Sullivan from losing sight of him in the sylvan gloom.

He caught up near a tree that had fallen at the edge of a large glade. Sullivan joined Sid in a crouch and watched as Arvin Wrobel unwrapped the package he’d brought with him. A spade fell out of it, along with a length of highly polished – and, Sullivan could tell even at their distance, heavily stained – wood. One end of the stave was splintered, and the Inspector was certain that it would match up perfectly with the broken end that had been found still attached to the axe head in Ronald Kilmer’s back.

Beside him, he noted as Wrobel began to press the spade straight down into the frosty soil, Sid was no longer sniffling. He glanced over and saw that his mouth was open, allowing him to bypass his nose as he breathed. The light was better here than it had been in the shadow of their watching tree, and Sullivan was able to make out thin lines of distress around his narrowed eyes. So he _could_ be silent when he was stuffy, it seemed, but not comfortably so. His mortification over their conversation, and over the conduct of the policeman who had put that wince on Sid’s face, deepened.

He only caught the movement behind them because he was looking at Sid rather than at Arvin. Without the warning from his peripheral vision, the Wrobels would have notched up at least one more kill that night. And it was, Sullivan realized as the perfectly burnished blade of a brand-new axe passed through the space his head had been occupying mere moments before, the pair of them, working together. Kate was no more innocent than her husband. He and Father Brown had each been half right.

Sid wheeled around when Sullivan threw himself out of the way. Kate Wrobel’s attractive face twisted sadly as she recognized him. Before the look had passed, though, she’d wrenched her weapon free of the old tree and was bringing it up for another swing at Sullivan. Regret, yes, but no mercy.

It was too late. Sid launched himself at her, catching her around the waist and knocking her over backward. The axe fell from her grasp and landed perilously close to their struggle. Sullivan lashed out with one foot and kicked the thing away into the undergrowth. If Sid could wrangle Kate – and, judging from her expression a moment earlier, he’d managed the feat in a different context at least once before – then that left him free to take care of Arvin...

...Who was barreling out of the clearing and heading straight for where Sid was beginning to get the upper hand on his wife.

Sullivan was still on his back, propped up his elbows but unable to rise fast enough for a tackle. There were only two ways that Arvin Wrobel’s spade wasn’t going to connect with the back of Sid’s head. One would be if his swing missed. At close range, and with Sid occupied and unable to duck, that seemed unlikely to happen. The other was if Sullivan treated Arvin’s knee the same way he’d treated Kate’s shiny new toy a few seconds before.

An ungodly howl came immediately on the heels of the _crunch_ of breaking bone. Arvin tumbled forward, rolled inelegantly over the still-tussling pair on the ground, and crashed to a standstill deep in the brush. Sullivan, knowing that the axe was in there somewhere, too, scrambled after him as fast as he could.

It was a wise decision, as Wrobel was stretching to reach the weapon even as he continued to mewl in agony. Sullivan snatched it away, then picked up the spade as well. “Stay where you are,” he warned. “...Not that you’d get far anyway,” he added, surveying the ugly angle at which his left leg was bent, “but save yourself some pain and don’t try.”

“Get off me!” came a cry from behind him. “Get off me, you scrote son of a bitch!”

“Aw, Katie,” Sid replied, his voice genuinely hurt. “That’s low.”

Sullivan turned to find Kate Wrobel pinned on her back. She was still attempting to get free, but Sid had his full weight on her. “We can do this one of two ways, Mrs. Wrobel,” Sullivan intoned. “You can stand up nicely, let me handcuff you, and have a seat against a tree. Or, Carter can turn you over, I’ll still handcuff you, and you’ll be left face-down in the dirt until we’re ready to move you to the station. Your choice.”

She stilled, and seemed to spend a moment thinking. Her gaze flitted between Sid and Sullivan. “...I’ll take the first option,” she said, resignation settling over her. “Sid likes a rear view a little too much, if you know what I mean.”

The remark gave Sullivan pause, but he tucked his interest in it away automatically. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mrs. Wrobel,” he lied smoothly, “and frankly, I don’t want to. Get her on her feet, Carter.”

Sid yanked her up, then pulled away like she was red-hot as soon as Sullivan’s cuffs closed around her wrists. A leer twisted Kate Wrobel’s mouth. “Oh, what, now you’re allergic to me?” she taunted. “Couldn’t get enough, for a while. But then...” She trailed off as she glanced back over her shoulder at Sullivan. Her eyes gleamed maliciously. “Out on a little date when you spotted Arvin, were you? Well, at least _someone_ got what they wanted for Christmas.”

...What? “Sit down,” Sullivan ordered, shaking his head as he led her to a large oak. “Katherine Wrobel, you’re being detained under suspicion of the murder of Ronald Kilmer. Arvin Wrobel, you’re also being detained under that suspicion.”

“Do you hear that, Arvin?” Kate called to her still-sprawled husband. “We’re being arrested over Ronald Kilmer. Can you believe it?”

“Shut up, Katie,” Arvin groaned back at her. “You’re not helping anything.”

Sullivan beckoned for Sid to follow him a short distance away from the Wrobels. “I have to go call in some back-up,” he shared. “But they can’t be left alone. He wouldn’t make it far on his own right now, but as for her...”

“She’s loony,” said Sid. “Completely bonkers.” His voice was strained, and he wouldn’t meet Sullivan’s gaze. The pained lines at the corners of his eyes, the Inspector noted, had been joined by a crinkle of worry that marred his brow.

“Will you stay?”

Sid frowned, then opened his mouth again to breathe. “...Yeah. Just give me a second first.”

With that he turned and walked away into the woods. On the edge of invisibility, he stopped. Sullivan’s bemusement at this was answered by the sound of a completely stuffed-up nose being furiously blown. After a minute or two of laborious sinus clearing, Sid braced himself against a tree with one hand, hacked a half-dozen times, and spat. Then he made his way back to Sullivan. “’S fine now,” he muttered. Sniff. “You can go.”

He looked pale in the moonlight, save for deep bands of flush across his cheekbones. “Are you all right? That sounded...ah...” Wretched? Excruciating? Tortuous? Sullivan couldn’t choose any one adjective, because they all fit too well.

“I said I’m fine, didn’t I?” When Sullivan just blinked at him, Sid sighed. “That’s what happens when I can’t sniff. It builds up fast, then it’s hard to clear out again.”

“...Oh.” The words he’d wanted to say before Arvin Wrobel made his move pushed themselves onto the tip of his tongue again. “Carter, I’m-”

“Save it.” Sullivan broke off. “...Just go do what you have to do. I’ll stay here.”

They walked back to the Wrobels. Kate had slouched in their absence, but she straightened as they approached. Her attention locked onto Sullivan. “Did that disgusting display turn you on?” she jeered. “If you hadn’t been so far apart, I would have thought he was choking on your-”

“Kate!” Arvin wailed. “Stop it, woman! He’s already broken my bloody knee; do you want him to hurt you, too? Or take more out on me?”

Sullivan felt Sid stiffen beside him. Wonderful; first he’d made him think he was in favor of policemen punching hungry twelve-year-olds, and now a prisoner was claiming assault. When Sid spoke, however, his words were directed not at Sullivan, but at Kate. “Yeah, Katie. I mean, it _is_ Christmas; you might quit bein’ a bitch for one second.”

She simpered. “Takes one to know one, sunshine.”

Sid flinched, sniffed hard, then glanced at Sullivan. “Hurry up, would you?”

“Ooh, I’ll bet he doesn’t say that often, does he?”

“ _Shut. Up!_ ” shouted all three men simultaneously.

“...Seriously, Inspector,” Sid said into the abrupt stillness that followed their combined outburst. “Hurry the hell up.”

*******

*******

Later, when the prisoners had been loaded into a police car and an ambulance and were about to depart their driveway for the last time, Sullivan spotted Sid melting away from the scene. “Don’t worry about the paperwork, Sergeant,” he told Goodfellow, whom he’d been filling in on the specifics of the night’s double arrest. “I’ll take care of it. Just lock her up and find someone to stand guard on him at the hospital. I’ll be at the station around noon, as soon as I’ve had a few hours’ sleep, and then you can go home.”

“I don’t mind if you need me to stay longer than that, sir.”

“No. It’s Christmas. You should be with your family.” Sullivan was already leaving him, trailing after Sid. “I’ll see you at noon.”

Sid only had a couple of inches of height over the Inspector, but it was all in his legs. The one hand he had in his coat pocket and the cigarette in his mouth might have made it look like he was just strolling casually up the road back towards Kembleford proper, but Sullivan had to hustle to catch him up. “Carter,” he called from a few yards behind. “Wait.”

The other man’s feet didn’t stop, but he slowed enough to let Sullivan draw even and fall into an easier pace. “I already gave my statement.”

“Yes, I know. That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Really? Not even the part with the other bodies?”

Sullivan nearly tripped. _“...What_ part with the other bodies?!”

“While you were gone, I went over and took a look at where Arvin was gonna bury the axe handle. It’s not the only part of the clearing that’s been disturbed over the last couple years.”

The care with which Wrobel had wielded his spade came back into Sullivan’s mind. “He was going to replace the sod,” he said slowly. “If he took it up neatly, he could put it back down so that you’d either have to know where he’d dug or be looking for a difference to find it.”

“Exactly.” The tip of Sid’s cigarette flared in the pre-dawn gray. “...I saw signs of at least three other spots. And none of them were axe handle-sized.”

“Three?” Sullivan shook his head. “We don’t have enough missing persons cases locally to explain that.”

“I’d bet they weren’t locals. Arvin hires in help sometimes. Nothing major, just one, sometimes two men at a go. Harvest and planting, mostly. He picks people up off the roads, gives them a bed and meals and a bit of cash for a week or two, then – supposedly – sends them on their way.” Sid paused to sniff, then held his tongue, as if he was waiting for Sullivan to catch on to something in what he’d just said. “...Winter wheat just went in, dinnit?” he prompted. “If Arvin finished up around the same time as the others, I’d say he was done about last Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“A day or so before Ronald Kilmer’s death.”

“Yeah. Exactly. And Kilmer’s not – wasn't – from around here, so if that courier from Cheltenham hadn’t gotten turned around and heard him screaming out along the Hambleston road near Arvin’s far field, he might have just vanished. No one would probably ever have looked for him round Kembleford, if he had anyone to look for him at all. Plenty of others Arvin’s hired fit that same description. None of it explains Kate’s part, ‘course, but I think the Father’s got that bit figured out, since he suspected her all along.”

It all fit. “...Carter?”

Sniff. “Yeah?”

“How and why do you know when winter wheat was planted? You’re not a farmhand.”

Sid shrugged. “Down the pub, mostly.”

“People talk about wheat at the pub?” He supposed it made sense, since there were farms enough in the area, but speaking of wheat whilst one was drinking it struck Sullivan as a terribly dull pastime.

“Well...” Sniff. “...If you stopped by once in a while you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

Sullivan opened his mouth to retort, but there were no words waiting to come out.

Sid’s cigarette was almost gone. He pulled another from his pocket, used the last drag of the dying one to light it, then dropped the old end, stepped on it, and kicked it over to the verge. “I know it’s littering,” he said, catching Sullivan’s sneer. “I wouldn’t normally, but I don’t want to give this coat back with the pockets full of ash. Bad enough that I’m snuffling and smoking in it.”

There was faint light in the east now, and the road was open enough to let Sullivan see that the trench coat Sid was wearing was of a noticeably older style. “...Father Brown’s,” he surmised.

“Yeah.” Sniff. “He insisted it’d be warmer than anything I have. Probably right.”

It was a bit too broad through the shoulders and hips, and the sleeves ended too high above his wrists, but the fit was passable. “Is that the one he had in-”

“’Spect so,” Sid cut him off. “I didn’t ask, and I don’t plan to. But he did have to dig it out of a box I’ve never seen him get into before, and there’s no chance it’s fit him for years now, so...you know. Makes sense.”

They’d reached the edge of the village. Sid stopped at the first street junction. “This’s you.”

“...Yes. It is.” He hadn’t said a word of what he’d run after Sid to say. “Listen, Carter-”

“What are you up to later, then?”

“I...what?”

“Later.” Sniff. “Y’know. Christmas dinner?”

“Oh...ah...” Sullivan bit back a wince as he recalled that there was little more to eat in the police cottage than a few tinned goods, a wilting head of lettuce, and some sausages. He’d been so busy with the Kilmer murder that he hadn’t given any thought to re-stocking his larder before the holiday.

“Mrs. M. always makes too much of everything. We’ll be having re-heats for the next week. I’m not complaining; any meal of hers is worth eating six or seven times over. I’m just saying there’ll be plenty, and it’d be a shame to miss it if you didn’t already have other plans.”

Sullivan was equal parts confused and gratified. The mixture of emotions caused his reply to come out stilted, as if he was making up excuses as he went along. “I...have to watch the station. Because of the prisoner.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Something that might have been disappointment crossed Sid’s face. “The prisoner. And all that paperwork.”

“...Yes.”

“Alright. Well...see you around, then, I guess.” Sniff. “Happy Christmas, Inspector.” And with that, Sid turned and continued on his way towards the presbytery.

Sullivan felt a weird yearning to call him back. Of course he’d come to dinner, he’d say, laughing at his own ridiculousness like a normal human being would. He could work something out, arrange coverage for an hour or two.

He’d finally apologize, too, not just for his ignorant remark tonight but for what had been done and said in the past. They could talk for a minute more, maybe, here on the street corner, then at dinner, perhaps on other days. Not argue, just talk, like they’d managed to do off and on over the course of the night. As strange as it was to say, Sullivan had enjoyed that. More would be nice.

It would have been nice, if he had said something sooner. But by the time he shook himself and prepared to call out – it was ‘Sid’ on the tip of his tongue, funny enough, rather than ‘Carter’ - he was alone. “Yes,” he ground out, annoyed for once not with Sid but with himself. “Happy Christmas, indeed.”


	3. Whatever Happens On the Morrow

The case was solved, and Sullivan should have been able to crawl into his neglected bed and catch a few hours of sleep. But sleep refused to come, even after he heated the last couple of inches of milk he had and drank it down to soothe his oddly tangled-up stomach.

If he was going to pass out, he needed to do it soon. Before much longer the street outside would begin to busy with people heading off to church and on Christmas visits to friends and neighbors. Sullivan required either utter quiet or a constant background hum to drop off, and the holiday comings and goings of the good folk of Kembleford wouldn’t provide either.

It was silent now, though. So why couldn’t he take advantage of it? Maybe, he thought wryly as he lay on his side beneath the quilt, he’d gotten so used to Sid’s metronomic sniffing over the course of the evening that its sudden absence was befuddling him.

He’d meant that as a joke, but once he’d given the idea life he couldn’t shake it off. Soon he realized that it wasn’t just the sniffing that was making him sleepless; it was the whole Sid thing. His history, _their_ history, last night, tomorrow...he really needed to apologize tomorrow. He _would_ apologize tomorrow, no matter what. For all that Sullivan hadn’t had any way of knowing the full context of his broken nose when he'd made his comment about Sid’s innocence, an apology was in order.

Not that he hadn’t tried to give it tonight. Thinking back on it now, it struck him as strange that Sid had kept deflecting his attempts. Cutting him off when Arvin Wrobel had left the house and then again while they were alone in the woods with two dangerous prisoners was understandable, but there had been no reason not to let him say his piece on the walk back into the village.

It was almost as if Sid didn’t want to hear it. Perhaps his initial anger had dissipated sometime during their encounter with the axe-murderers. The man had invited him to Christmas dinner, after all. That wasn’t something you generally offered to people you were pissed off at, unless you had plans to poison the pudding, and Sullivan couldn’t imagine Sid risking Mrs. McCarthy’s wrath by tampering with one of her recipes.

Good, then. Despite everything, Carter wasn’t mad at him. Sullivan wasn’t sure why that lifted a weight from his shoulders – he'd never cared what Sid thought about him before – but it did. Pushing the new question of why Sid’s opinion suddenly mattered aside for the moment, he drifted towards sleep.

Thirty minutes before his alarm was set to go off, he jerked into half-consciousness. Something was missing. Something important, something essential. He threw his right arm out behind him, searching. Where had they gone?

As his hand patted the mattress on the other side of the double bed, some of the tired haze in his brain lifted. What the hell was he doing? Of course there was no one there. There was never anyone there. So why had he been so convinced that someone – someone in particular, there had been a face in his mind, a warmth, a smell, a shape – ought to have been snuggled up alongside him? And why did he suddenly feel as empty as the space where he had so hoped to find another human being?

He wasn’t even sure now who it was he’d been looking for. Apparently, though, they’d been attractive, because Sullivan belatedly discovered that the hand he hadn’t been groping for them with was wrapped around his half-erect cock.

“Jesus,” he muttered, releasing himself with disgust. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a wet dream, or even part of one. He kept his sexual desires as secure as a death row inmate, locked up and restricted to a highly regimented schedule that was designed to prevent them from introducing any further havoc into his life. His system had contained those wants successfully for so long that this little rebellion was almost frightening.

A shower. The water would be especially cold this morning, given the temperature outside. Yes. He’d turn the hose against his hard-on, just like prison guards did with convicts when they were faced with a serious riot. That would quell whatever anarchy had gotten inside of him while he slept.

In seconds he was in the bathroom, stripping off his pyjamas, avoiding his reflection in the mirror. A hissing little sob escaped him as he stepped into the frigid spray he’d called up. His skin protested, and he began shivering immediately, but the swelling between his legs fled. Victory.

Another minute, just to be sure, and then Sullivan slowly brought the water up to the steaming heat he normally showered at. His muscles relaxed as they warmed, though a vacant sort of coldness lingered at his core. Trying to ignore it, to ignore everything except for the tasks that lay before him this afternoon, Sullivan started to move through his usual bathing rituals: wet hair; shampoo; soap up while his scalp soaked...

The bar turned in his hand as he ran it over his stomach. Its corner, every nerve along its path informed him, did a decent imitation of someone else’s slickened fingertip. Or at least it probably did; he really had no good way of knowing. The few times he’d been intimate with someone else had been too hurried to allow for clothes to come off, beyond what was strictly necessary for the act in question. What would it be like, he wondered as the bar slid lower, to actually be with someone – the person from his dream, maybe, whoever they were – while they were both naked, and not rushed for time?

“Stop it,” he snarled at himself. But his hand kept going, down into a nest of curls, dropping the soap but keeping the lather it had thrown off on its trip south. No. Yes. No, stop! Yessss...

Sullivan had a strict masturbatory protocol. There were a few meticulously chosen images that he could call up to help himself along, though usually his physical need was strong enough by each of his pre-planned Tuesday and Friday night sessions that little more than a few minutes of basic, hetero-normal self-stimulation was required. His mind produced one of these pictures as he wrapped his fingers back in the same place they’d been when he woke.

The girl – and it was a girl, that was a requirement for all of his images, because pretty boys had been the root of all his problems ever since he was fourteen – was tall, almost scarecrowish. She reached out to him, her back tight against the sturdy trunk of an old tree as she invited him to kiss his way along her pointed, waif-like chin and press himself against her unfemininely flat chest. She was no traditional beauty, a bit husky-voiced and lacking in the realm of curves as she was, but she had been his girl of choice for months now. He didn’t remember her name, though he thought it had started with an S. Selene? That would explain the moonlight that was glinting off her short dark hair...

As he moved towards her (it was a good thing she wasn’t a real girl, he thought, because he wasn’t sure he was going to make it into her embrace before he came), her face began to change. It happened in slow motion, and although it should have been a disturbing sight Sullivan found it exciting. Something told him that each bit of bone structure, arch of eyebrow, and curve of lip that shifted was bringing the visage of the person from his dream back into focus. He wanted to see them, needed to know who had infiltrated his subconscious with such unprecedented success. Only then could he figure out what to do with them.

He was so intrigued by the individual bits of the girl’s metamorphizing face that he didn’t consider the whole until the last piece clicked into place. It was an artful smirk, something that wouldn’t have looked right on the made-up person he’d started with but which fit this newly revealed and very real being perfectly. “...Oh,” Sullivan breathed as understanding and orgasm hit him at the same time. _“Sid...”_

The shower wall caught him as he slumped sideways, spent. He panted there for a long moment, staring blankly at nothing and trying to absorb what had just happened. A small part of him, the warden of his desires, tried to refute the real meaning of the last few minutes. He was tired from work and from being up all night. He was lonely, not just sexually but in almost every other way that a person could be. He was hallucinating because the milk he’d had before bed had gone off without him noticing. Anything, anything other than-

“It’s the truth,” Sullivan murmured. He might have disagreed with Father Brown’s hypotheses more often than not, but when the solution was laid out before him at the end and all of the pieces fit, he generally accepted defeat. There was no other option, because the truth was the truth, and if he’d learned anything during his months in Kembleford it was that sometimes the truth was impossible to see until it blindsided you.

And he _was_ blindsided by this, though by the time he was perched on the edge of the bed with his dressing gown wrapped tightly around him he was starting to wonder how he’d been so oblivious. Now that he stopped and thought about it – now that his desire was unshackled, however temporary that state might prove to be – he realized that it had started before he’d even met Sid. The photo in his police file had been enough to plant the seed. Amused, but not taunting; clever, too clever for his own good, but not cruel; charming (and how, Sullivan remembered marveling, could a person manage to be charming in a bloody mug shot?) but not charlatanic.

Valentine had shown him the file on Monday, his first day of work. The dark-haired girl with the pixie face had made her debut appearance in his fantasies the very next day, and she’d been his helpmeet whenever he needed a little mental titillation to finish as scheduled ever since.

Actually meeting Sid had panicked the living daylights out of Sullivan, because the picture in his file, remarkable as it was, hadn’t conveyed so much as a tenth of his speed and wit and warmth. His control system must have kicked in automatically, he decided, sweeping away every confusing, exciting thing that he felt about the other man and replacing it with the cold, hard things that he knew. He knew the law, he knew Sid’s history with the law (well, he’d thought he did, at least), and he knew that it was his duty to make sure that the law remained dominant in that relationship. And his duty, as his mental warden often reminded him, was all that mattered. Thus the glares, and the verbal barbs, and the pointless arrests that Sullivan had repeatedly perpetrated since that first encounter.

But tonight, maybe because of their talk, maybe because they’d each defended the other without thinking, Sid had managed to overpower the warden. He’d snuck into the prison in Sullivan’s head and locked the old boss up in one of his own cells. He’d let all the captives out, too, all of the lewd and illegal acts that Sullivan had ever dreamt of committing with him or others. Sullivan imagined Sid watching the beautiful creatures he’d released as they capered through the concrete corridors they'd been trapped in for so long. Looking down on the hedonistic work he’d wrought, grinning, he was by far the most seductive imp of the lot.

And what if Sid looked up then, in this improbable dream world, and met Sullivan’s gaze? Would his glance say that he’d thrown the world into chaos just for the hell of it, or with some other, more personal end in mind?

The malicious gleam that Sullivan had seen in Kate Wrobel’s eyes gave him hope for the latter. ‘Out on a date?’ she’d asked. ‘At least _someone_ got what they wanted for Christmas.’ Those words, like all the others she’d spat out beside the clearing, had been as precise as her axe handling. She hadn’t been swinging blind; she’d known, or thought she knew, exactly what she was getting at. Dropping hints about an ex-lover's illegal sexual proclivities was a nasty sort of revenge, but then, she was a murderer. Nothing was beyond a woman like that.

And Sid had reacted, hadn’t he? He’d pulled back from her at the earliest possible moment, called her a bitch, shouted at her to shut up. She’d struck a nerve, and she’d struck it in front of a policeman, the exact kind of person who had not only ruined his life in the past but could so easily do so again in the future.

Sullivan’s happy vision dissolved. What a mess this was. Sid didn’t seem to be mad at him – there had been real disappointment in his look when he’d said no to dinner, the memory of which made the Inspector’s heart skip a beat – but he had every right to be. Sullivan had excellent reasons for having tamped down his desires all this time, but those reasons didn’t excuse his attempts to set himself up as Sid’s nemesis. And now, now that he’d let himself remember that he didn’t actually hate the man, now that he’d learned that there was maybe, just maybe, a chance for something more between them, they were stuck in a dance of public animosity that it was going to be exceedingly difficult to stop performing without giving everything away.

He thought briefly about bringing the warden back. It would be the easiest path by far in terms of external logistics, even if he did end up having to put down more internal rebellions every time he and Sid had a semi-normal conversation. But his eyes grew hot at the prospect. This upheaval inside him was terrifying, yes, but it was also thrilling. He didn’t want to stuff it back into its cage. He’d have to go on lying to the world at large about what the commotion meant, of course, and about what he _did_ want, because that was just the way the world was. But he was so, so tired of lying to himself.

It had to stop now, while he had this opportunity, this impossible Christmas gift, that Sid had given to him. The other man might never be in his bed – just because Sid apparently had homosexual leanings didn’t mean that he’d ever been, or ever would be, interested in him – but Sullivan needed him to at least be present and acknowledged in his dreams. He couldn’t live so alone, alone even inside his own head, any longer.

He let out a long, deep sigh as the alarm went off on the nightstand. It was fine; he did still have a duty to do, after all. But from now on, he swore as he stood up and began to dress for the day, he was going to work harder on his duty to himself. It seemed only fair, after he’d ignored it for so long.


	4. This Evening I Must Have A Taste

Sullivan looked up as he heard someone enter the station. Sergeant Goodfellow and the last of the constables had gone home hours earlier, and he’d been alone in his office ever since. He’d been tempted to take the Sergeant up on his repeated offer to stay – the morning’s epiphany about his self-imposed isolation had left him with a craving for human contact of any kind – but after a second of hesitation he’d shaken his head. It was Christmas; the Sergeant had better and more important places to be than at work. Besides, all they’d be doing if he remained was paperwork, and that was hardly festive.

He’d just started to rise from his chair to see who’d come in when the door to his office was nudged open. A massive basket appeared, followed by the person carrying it. Sid frowned down at him, glanced back over his shoulder, then sniffled. “Have you been here by yourself all day?”

“Um...no.” Sullivan hadn’t anticipated that he would break out in goosebumps the next time he found himself in Sid’s presence. The reaction caught him off guard and left him searching for words that should have come easily. “I mean...I didn’t come in until noon. There were others here then.”

“But you sent them home.”

“Yes, of course.” This would be much easier if it didn’t feel like Sid was x-raying him with his eyes. “They all had people to be with today.”

Still frowning, Sid shifted from one foot to the other. His gaze intensified. “Did you... _not_ want to be with people today?”

Sullivan had to look away. “Someone had to stay with the prisoner. And do all the paperwork,” he added. “As you pointed out earlier, I prefer not to leave that undone any longer than necessary.”

Sid’s cheeks had already been pinkened by his chilly walk across the village, but now they flushed into a deeper hue. “...I was only teasing you with that,” he said. “Not...not making fun.”

“Is there a difference?”

“’Course there’s a difference. You only make fun of people you don’t like.”

“And since when do you like me, Carter?” No, no, no, no, _no._ Every word he’d just said had made Sullivan cringe. Why, _why_ was it so easy, so natural, to snipe at him like this? Hadn’t the revelation of his real feelings for the man in front of him been enough to break this bad habit? He needed to slow down, to pay more attention, to try harder to be...well...human.

A shrug. There was something almost bashful in the action, though the weight Sid was still holding with both hands obscured the emotion. “You’re not so awful, for a policeman. Not so awful, at least, that you should be by yourself and without dinner on Christmas.” He lifted the basket an inch or two. “’Swhat this is. Dinner.”

“You...brought me dinner?”

“Well, you said you couldn’t make it over our way to eat, so...” He paused to sniffle. “...Yeah.”

Oh. Oh, God. Sergeant Goodfellow and a couple of the married constables had asked if he’d like a plate from their family meals, but he had of course turned them down. Sid hadn’t asked, hadn’t needed to ask; he’d simply done, as was his wont in every aspect of life. Touched, and unsure what to do about it, Sullivan said the first thing that popped into his head. “...It looks heavy.”

“It _is_ heavy. Mrs. M. saw what I was doing and insisted on sending enough to feed half the village. I told her it was going to be too much, but you know how she is.” A beat passed. “So, uh...where should I put it?” A flicker of a smirk – a nervous smirk? Sullivan didn’t think he’d seen that one on Sid before, but he liked it – ran across his face. “Don’t want to drop it on the desk here and mess up your paperwork. Teasing,” he added quickly.

Sullivan couldn’t help but chuckle. “I know,” he assured as he stood up. “Bring it back out front. We’ll put it on the counter. Oh, and Sid?”

Sid hesitated. “...Y-yeah?”

“Thank you.”

And not only for dinner, Sullivan thought as he followed Sid from the room. He’d looked like some wild dream of his had come true when he heard his first name spoken easily and without ire just now. It was the kind of expression that Sullivan wanted to see again, over and over, every time they tried out another one of the fantasies that had been locked up in his mind for so long.

How many secret desires, he wondered as he watched Sid put the basket down and strip off his jacket – gone, he marked, was the old trench coat – might they turn out to share, if this ever went any further than a somewhat awkward proto-friendship? How many others might start out as one person’s interest and turned into a mutual one? How many might they discover together?

“You cold?”

“What?” Sullivan shook himself. “No. Why?”

“You shivered.”

“Did I?” He hadn’t meant to, but he’d caught the flex of muscle in one freshly bared forearm as Sid lifted a heaping plate of goose and turkey onto the counter. “Strange. I didn’t notice.”

“Well, this’ll warm you up a bit, anyway.” A bottle of wine appeared. “The Father insisted.”

He really shouldn’t drink in the station, especially since he was the only member of the constabulary with immediate access to the prisoner. But it _was_ Christmas, and he needed something steadying unless he wanted to start drooling over the way that flannel shirt brought out the color of Sid’s eyes. “I’ll...see if I can find a corkscrew.”

“No need.” Sid pulled one from the depths of the basket. “So long’s you’ve got a fork in the back somewhere, you’re set.”

Sullivan blinked at him. “Do you have something against the other basic utensils of civilization?” he asked lightly, straining to keep anything that might come off as judgement out of his voice. “Plates, cups, et cetera?”

“Not as a rule, no. But if you're the only one here to eat, why make extra dishes?”

“You’re not eating?”

“Ate already, didn’t I? Fourth round about killed me.”

“You had _four_ plates?!”

He regretted the question immediately. After the constant hunger that Sid had described feeling as a child, who could blame him for overeating when the opportunity arose?

But Sid took the reaction in stride, as if it was one he was used to hearing. “You’ll understand why when you get to this.” A huge bowl appeared in his hands. “Best stuffing in the world.” He considered the bowl for a moment. Sniff. “...Might have a little room left after all, come to think of it.”

“You _did_ carry a heavy basket all the way from the presbytery.”

“Shook things down a bit, you figure?”

“It sounds reasonable enough to me.” Their gazes met, and they exchanged fleeting smiles. So, they were capable of bantering without hurting one another; good. It was already much more fun this way. “I’ll bring two plates.”

“And I’ll open the wine.”

“And I’ll have some too,” a sarcastic voice echoed from the cells, “thank you _so much_ for asking.”

Damn. Sullivan had been so distracted by Sid’s unexpected arrival that he’d forgotten that Kate Wrobel might be able to hear them out here. Usually the background noise of the station would be enough to make normal conversation at the front counter unintelligible from inside the cells. Tonight was so quiet, though, that their voices were probably clear as day to her. “I think not,” he scoffed.

Sid tilted his head to one side. “...No?”

“Are you serious? She’s an axe-murderess who tried to kill us both less than twenty-four hours ago!”

Sniff. “Yeah, but...it’s still Christmas. And you have to feed her something anyway, don’t you?”

Sullivan knew that Kate had been given a decent lunch just before his arrival at the station. By the book, he could have given her nothing more complex than porridge for dinner. But that little worried fold was back between Sid’s eyebrows, deepening with every second of silence that went by. Sullivan sighed. “...Yes, all right. She’s an axe-murderess, but it’s Christmas. No wine, though.”

“No, she’s barmy enough these days without any of that.”

They dished things out in silence, Sullivan filling his own plate, Sid piling things onto a tin tray for Kate. “You missed the parsnips,” Sullivan pointed out.

Sid shook his head. “She doesn’t like parsnips. Her mum used to make them awful. She hates them so much she won’t even let Arvin grow them.”

“Oh.” He’d already taken a decent amount of them for himself, but now Sullivan added an extra spoonful. “Then I’ll have hers.”

“Favorite of yours, parsnips?”

There was no teasing in the question, just curiosity and a hint of eagerness. “They are, actually. I don’t know why, but I’ve always liked them. And these look especially good.”

“That’s Mrs. M. in the kitchen for you. I’d guess she could boil an old shoe and make it taste alright, if she had to.” Sid snickered. “Her face when I told her that...I didn’t know a person could look flattered and disgusted all together like she did. Me and the Father near died trying not to laugh.”

Sullivan could picture the scene, could feel the humor and warmth between the people in it. Yearning filled him. He couldn’t recall ever having a moment like that with his own family. Any humor and warmth in their house had died with his mother, and he’d been far too young to remember much of his time with her. Fleeting conversations like this one he was having with Sid – that was mind-boggling still, the idea that he might have a friendly chat with Sid Carter, but here they were – were the closest Sullivan had ever come to the homey feeling that he suspected was a near-constant at the presbytery.

Sid was lifting the tray from the counter. “Wait,” Sullivan stopped him. “I have to take it to her.”

“Really? You’ve let people bring me back food plenty of times.”

“Yes, but it’s on one of our trays. Anything that the station provides for a prisoner to eat or drink has to be carried back by an officer. Even though this food was provided by civilians, the fact that it was technically given to the station and passed from there to the prisoner means that a civilian can’t take it back to her. I probably shouldn’t even have let you fill the tray.”

Sid wrinkled his nose, then sniffed. “You have to follow rules that specific all the time?”

“When I’m at work, yes.”

“Doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“It’s-” It was policework, he bit back. It wasn’t meant to be fun. Then again, plenty of others he’d worked with seemed to get a laugh or three in per shift. He glanced at Sid, who was watching him, waiting. “...It has its moments.” This one, for instance. “Besides, how ‘fun’ is your job?”

“My job?” A sniffle, and Sid grinned. “My job’s a right riot. Anyone who can drive Lady F. around and not have fun doing it’s doing it wrong.”

“Mm...and I suppose it doesn’t hurt anything that the two of you get on like a house afire.”

“That, too,” Sid beamed. “Anyway, at least you can bend the rules a little off the clock. Right?”

Until tonight, that question would have been answered with a sharp negative. Now, though, Sullivan opened his mouth, then closed it without speaking. “...Sometimes,” he answered slowly. “Sometimes, yes.”

“That’s good. All work and no play, and that.”

“Excuse me, lover-boys, but if you two are done flirting I’d like my dinner now.”

Both men grimaced. “She’s mouthy,” Sid said apologetically. “She’s always been mouthy – used to be one of her charms – but she’s really having at it today.”

“And on one topic in particular,” Sullivan muttered.

“...Heh. Yeah. Well, like we said, right? Barmy.”

Sid’s false airiness wasn’t enough to cover his uncertainty. Sullivan held out his plate. “Here. Take this, and yours, into my office. She won’t be able to hear us there. I’ll take the tray down to her. Maybe it will shut her up for a little while.”

The station plates weren’t terribly large, and Sullivan, having eaten next to nothing over the last day, had been rather liberal in his piling-on of Mrs. McCarthy’s side courses. There was no good way to hold his over-full dish without either sticking fingers into the food or supporting the bottom with a palm. It was for this reason that the act of passing the plate caused Sid’s hand to overlay Sullivan’s almost completely.

They both froze. Their eyes locked. There was hope in Sid’s gaze, and more than a hint of lust, but both of those feelings were shot through with real fear. It hurt Sullivan to see this last, most powerful emotion, even though he understood all the reasons why it was there. The hope and the lust (especially, he thought with a gulp as he gently withdrew his hand, the lust) could stay, but he wanted – no, he _needed_ \- to make the fear go away. “I won’t be long, if you want to pour the wine.”

“...Right. The wine. On it.”

Sullivan had intended to push the tray through its slot to Kate Wrobel and walk away without speaking. What she said as soon as he arrived at her cell, however, stopped him cold. “You’re a fool if you let him get away, Inspector.”

She had whispered that, like she wanted to keep her words between them. Her face was serious on its side of the grated viewing window, and for the second time that evening Sullivan felt like he was being looked straight through. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but he lowered his voice to reply. “Do you mean your husband, Mrs. Wrobel? Because he won’t be getting away any more than you will be.”

“Don’t waste your time and mine with that ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ act,” the woman tsked, rolling her eyes. “You know. You want him. Sid. And he wants you.”

Sullivan knew he should reject this observation, should shout her down like he had in the clearing. Kate Wrobel would hang by mid-summer, but she would have plenty of chances between now and then to speak with people who could make things very difficult for him if they believed her about his desire for Sid. But he wanted her to elaborate on the last thing she’d said, so he made no reply and waited for her to go on.

“He was with me when you came along. It had only been a month or so, but I liked him. I liked him a lot. Most men who would sleep with a married woman, there’s a bit of a bastard in them somewhere. But not Sid.” A nostalgic smile played about her lips. “Not really. Maybe that’s hard for you to believe right now, but if you don’t screw up your chance with him, you’ll see it soon enough.

“He was far from the first person I'd been with who wasn’t my husband. I don’t mind admitting that, to you or to anyone else, now. If Sid’s involved in this, which he obviously is, then that means Father Brown’s involved, and he’ll put everything together before long, if he hasn’t already. There’s no point in holding back anymore.

“I have a knack for knowing when people want each other, and for knowing how deep it goes, or could go. It’s a family thing; people used to treat my grandmother, and her mother, and on back like matchmakers. People aren’t much into that nowadays, but not being asked about potential partners doesn’t mean I don’t still see them, everywhere I look.

“A quick fling, a relationship that won’t end well, a fifty-year marriage...I can usually tell the odds just by seeing the way people are around each other. I don’t even have to know them very well. That’s why we got away with the workers for as long as we did; I never mis-read what they wanted from me.”

A little thrill ran through Sullivan. Was she really about to offer him a confession, then let him walk away with both it _and_ the knowledge that the man waiting in his office was truly open to, even thirsting for, at least a fling with him? It seemed entirely too good to be true, Christmas or not.

“I enjoyed my affairs,” Kate said frankly. “Arvin enjoyed them, too. You do an excellent job of coming off very straight-laced and no-nonsense, Inspector, but I have a hunch that you’ve got your fair share of kinks and interests that others might find strange.”

Sullivan, recalling some of the dirtier fantasies that had been frolicking about in his head while he’d been trying to concentrate on his paperwork, struggled to keep his countenance.

“Well, Arvin and I share a passion for betrayal and redemption. I betrayed him, I hurt him, over and over again, by seducing and sleeping with his workers. He liked to be hurt like that, to feel that kind of jealousy and rage. Then I redeemed myself by killing the person I’d been ‘led astray’ by. Sometimes Arvin would help, if he thought I’d felt something for the man, but more often than not I did the actual murdering and he just watched me do my penance. We both took pleasure from it. It turned us on like nothing else in the world ever could. So-”

“Wait,” Sullivan cut her off. “...Wait. You killed all of these men you had affairs with, but...”

“But Sid?”

“Yes.”

“Sid has the luck of the devil himself. His being local would have made it hard to get away with. My husband and I aren’t stupid; there’s a reason we always went after people who were just moving through the area, people with no connections anywhere nearby. There were a couple of times when we had to let someone promising alone after they mentioned having a friend or a cousin or something just up the road.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Can you imagine the hell that would have been unleashed on us if we’d done with Sid what we did with Ronald Kilmer? Even if we’d managed to hide him afterward, it would have been far too risky. Anyway, I didn’t take up with him to hurt him. It was different than with the others.

“...But I think Arvin would have killed him,” she added slowly. “You see, Sid was a _real_ betrayal, because Arvin didn’t know about him until it was already over. We always decided on our targets together. And when he _did_ find out – it was my own fault he realized, I didn’t take it well when Sid stopped showing the same interest in me as before – he was livid.

“I had to talk him down. I promised to do more of our normal ones to make up for it. We did, and he forgave me and didn’t go after him, but it was a close call. Arvin’s always been jealous over me – as I said, it's part of our fun – and I really did like Sid beyond the sex. Loved him a little, maybe. He was just so fun, so easy to be with.

“Which is why we’re having this conversation. It didn’t take long for me to see who had turned his head. He’s just as good at hiding his interest in men as you are, but again, I have a sixth sense for these things. Besides, I’d recently been on the receiving end of some of those same lingering glances he was suddenly sending after you.

“As much as I hate Sid for dropping me the way he did, I also still care for him. I want him to be happy. And I think you would make him happy, happy in a way that I’ve never seen him happy with anyone else, any of his little conquests, before. Not even with me.

“So tonight, once I knew Arvin and I were caught and that I wasn’t going to have many more opportunities to make anyone happy, in any way, even briefly, I decided that I wanted to do what I could to make this – you – happen for him. After all, like Sid said earlier, back in the clearing and again a few minutes ago, it’s Christmas. Someone ought to get what they want today, even if it can’t be me.

“That’s why I’ve been being so blunt and nasty. Such a bitch, as Sid so rightly labeled me. I thought maybe if you both thought that someone else knew your secret, it would push you together. And,” she shrugged, “it seems to have worked. You’re both here, alone except for me, and you’re not biting each other’s heads off. Now it’s up to you. So...happy Christmas, Inspector. And good luck.”

A beat passed. “I’ll take that food now,” Kate requested. “It was sweet of Sid to bring dinner for you, and even sweeter of him to insist that you share it with me. I’d like to eat it while it might still have a little warmth left.”

The tray rattled against the edges of the pass-through when he pushed it to her side of the door. Looking down at the noise, Sullivan discovered that his hands were trembling. He shoved them into his pockets as he turned away. The posture would ruin the lines of his suit, he knew, but at least his nerves wouldn’t be quite so obvious.

“Quit that,” his prisoner ordered after him, her voice still pitched low. “...If you want to be with someone, _really_ be with them, you can’t hide yourself. Arvin and I would never have discovered what we like to do together, with the workers, if we’d been afraid of showing ourselves to each other. You might keep secrets about what you do, but you can’t keep secrets about who you are. It just doesn’t work in the long run.”

He paused. Should he really be taking advice from a woman who had just admitted to being a sex-driven serial axe-murderess, even if that advice felt right?

What, though, did he have to lose? If Sid wanted him the way he wanted Sid, then there was no danger inherent in making the first move. And Sullivan believed what Kate Wrobel had told him, what she had seen. She had done many unpleasant things in her life, but she hadn’t lied to him just now. As she’d said, there was no point in holding back anymore. Hers was the flawless honesty of the condemned.

Somewhere between the cells and his office, Sullivan pulled his hands out of his pockets. The door was half-shut, and he could see Sid pacing what little open floor there was beyond. At the sound of his approaching footsteps, the younger man dropped quickly into a chair and ran a hand over his hair. His expression was relaxed, and his gaze was steady, but his pupils dilated as he turned in his seat and focused on the Inspector. “Hey. I was wondering where you’d got to.” He sniffed. “What’d she do, try to convince you she’s innocent or something?”

“No.” Sullivan shut the door behind himself. “She confessed to everything.”

Sid boggled. “She _confessed?”_

“Yes.”

“To...to _everything?”_

“Yes, to everything.” The darkness and the cold meant that the window was already shuttered. Good.

Sid cleared his throat, then looked up at him again. “So...ah...more paperwork after dinner, huh? With all this new stuff to write down?” Sniff. “You don’t want to forget any of it. Might be important later.”

Sullivan didn’t even have to search for the disappointment behind those words. The length of a step was all that separated them; he closed it fast enough to hear Sid’s breath catch. “She did say some important things,” he said. He reached out with one hand – which was, he noted, no longer shaking – and trailed his fingertips up Sid’s throat. At the top he paused, cupping his jaw. For a moment the only motion between them was the pulse that had quickened into visibility under the thin skin that had just been caressed. “...But I’m certain that I won’t forget a word of it.”

Sniff. Sullivan dove.

Their kiss was soft and slow, a promise of things to come rather than a demand for immediate satisfaction. He drew it out for exactly the number of seconds he’d calculated Sid had before he needed to sniffle again. “Besides,” he added as he pulled back, “for once, I have something more important than paperwork to spend my evening doing.”


	5. And If We Wake Up, Warm and Happy

Sullivan didn’t flip on the light in the entryway of the police cottage. Instead, he groped out in the dark and found the hand that Sid wasn’t carrying the remaining half-bottle of Father Brown’s wine in. “Follow me.”

His minuscule sitting room was at the back. He passed the wall switch, opting instead to illuminate the lamps that flanked the sofa. There; bright enough to see, but dimmer, more intimate, than his office had been. “Have a seat,” he said, taking the bottle and turning towards the kitchen. “I’ll just be a minute.”

When he returned bearing two brimming glasses, he found Sid rising from the fire he’d started in the tiny grate. “...You don’t mind, do you?” Sid asked, seeing Sullivan pause.

“No. Not at all. I didn’t realize that it was still functional, that’s all. It looks decorative.”

“Oh. Yeah, I checked that first. You’re right, a lot of places that’ve been re-done like this one had the chimneys blocked off. It’s stupid, really. Who doesn’t want a nice fire on a cold night?” His eyes fell to the glasses in Sullivan’s hands. “’Specially when you’ve got a drink and-”

“...And what?” Sullivan pressed when Sid broke off.

His shrug was uncharacteristically shy. “Uh...someone to cuddle with. Not that we have to...I mean...” He sniffled. “...Yeah. Fire’s nice either way.”

Sullivan approached and handed him a glass. “I’ve never cuddled with anyone in front of a fire before,” he confessed.

Sid blinked hard, scandalized. “What, _never?_ Not even with a girl?”

“No. But it sounds nice.”

Sniff. Sid’s gaze darted to the sofa. “We could give it a try. If you wanted to?”

“You’ll have to show me how. And yes,” Sullivan added, feeling his cheeks warm, “I realize how ridiculous it sounds to need instructions on how to cuddle.”

“Nah.” The awkwardness of a moment earlier fell away. It was replaced by the happy, lopsided grin that Sid gave others all the time but which Sullivan had never been graced with until right now. There, too, was the easy confidence that he hadn’t ever seen Sid without before this long, strange day had shaken them both. “It’s not ridiculous. It’s just you, innit? Nothing wrong with that. In fact...”

Sid tapped their glasses together gently. They were too full to _ting_ the way he’d probably wanted them to, but if he noticed the flat sound he didn’t let it faze him. Instead he took a sip and then licked his lips, as if a little wine had still been clinging there after he swallowed. “...It seems pretty alright, to me.”

Any remaining questions Sullivan might have had about how the younger man fell into so many beds and out of so much trouble with such apparent ease evaporated. Before him now was Sid the charmer, full-on, no holds barred. Pure trouble. Sullivan gulped. “...Show me,” he whispered. “Please.”

They had gone back and forth like this back at the station, relaxed, then hesitant, then relaxed again. Sometimes their moods had been uneven, like in the seconds before their precious first kiss when Sullivan had been bold and certain and Sid had been so tense that the wrong harmonic frequency might have shattered him. At other times they’d been in perfect accord, such as when Sid had reached across the desk to steal a bite of Sullivan’s stuffing and they’d ended up in a giggly and mutually disbelieving fork war.

This latest shift, Sullivan thought as Sid set both of their glasses aside and drew him down onto the sofa, felt different, more permanent. He wasn’t sure why that was until an arm wrapped around his shoulders and urged him into a sideways lean. The fear, that was it; the last remnant of the fear he’d been so desperate to banish from Sid’s gaze earlier seemed to have finally gone.

Had it been his own admission of weakness just now, of not knowing how to do something that everyone else on the planet appeared to be born proficient in, that had done it? Maybe. But as the warm, soft fabric of Sid’s collar met his cheek, Sullivan decided that he didn’t really care about the reasons. It was enough just to be like this, together, now.

Sid’s hand began to move up and down his arm. “Glad the Sergeant called in and offered to take the night watch,” he said. “...Glad you said yes when he did.”

“So am I.” This was already a thousand times better than even the most satisfying stack of forms would have been.

“Glad you stripped down a bit while you were in the kitchen, too. Can’t really cuddle in a suit jacket.”

“Not that you haven’t tried, I’m sure,” Sullivan replied. It was easier now to say such things without having to concentrate on whether they sounded mean. The automatic disdain that he’d always put into his voice when he spoke to Sid before had been cowed by their first kiss, and completely subjugated by the two they’d shared since.

“I’m usually not even wearing this much for clothes when cuddling comes around, so...” He tugged on the sleeve of Sullivan’s shirt. “Unbutton this cuff, would you? It’ll be better that way. Won’t pull on your wrist so much.”

Sullivan did as he’d been asked. It _was_ better that way. Better still was the fact that his wine was pressed back into his hand once the unbuttoning was done. At Sid’s suggestion he slipped his shoes off and pulled his feet up onto the sofa, and that was even better yet. The world in general seemed better tonight than it ever had before, at least so far as Sullivan could recall.

A long stretch of quiet passed, each of them lost in a combination of the low, crackling flames and their own thoughts. “...Sid?”

“Hmm?”

The hum rumbled under Sullivan’s head. He had to let a second pass and process the pleasant sensation before he could speak again. “If you’re normally wearing next to nothing for cuddling, how do you know it would be difficult in a suit jacket?”

“...’Sfunny, that,” Sid mused. “A lot of blokes, even the ones who don’t mind being with another guy, just don’t get it about cuddling. Talking’s fine, making out’s fine, sex’s fine, but what we’re doing now, or curling up in bed together after a bit of fun...they don’t like it.” Sniff. “I think you’re only the second man I’ve ever known who could actually relax having a cuddle. I’ve had some sit just like you are right now, but all rigid, and still suited up from top to bottom.”

“...Part of me wants to laugh, but I feel their pain.”

Sid’s hand stopped. “Do you not like it? We don’t have to-”

But Sullivan was shaking his head. “No. I...I _do_ like it.” In truth, he admitted as Sid’s slow stroking started up again, he liked it a lot. Too much, maybe. Despite the incident in the shower earlier, and as alluring as the idea of Sid with fewer clothes on was, he was in no hurry to move on to anything more physical than what they were currently doing. Whether or not that would be the case in five minutes was something he couldn’t predict, but for now he felt full and snug and utterly content. “What I meant was, I think I would have been like them before.”

“Before what?”

“Before tonight.” Earlier today was technically more truthful, since he suspected his willingness to be held like this was tied into his decision to change the lonely lifestyle he’d been leading for so long. But there was no need to go into that right now. This night, he knew without needing to ask, was only the first of many. “...Before you.”

“So you haven't come across many others who like to cuddle, either.”

“No. But then, there’s never really been time with any of the others.”

Sid squeezed his arm. “That’s sad,” he murmured. Sniff. “I get it – every extra minute you’re together makes it more likely you’ll get caught – but it’s still sad. For you, and for those others, the poor bastards.”

“At least they don’t know what they’ve been missing out on.” The second glass of wine – mostly gone now, though he didn’t remember it happening – and the warm, sturdy weight he was leaning against had lulled Sullivan into a reflective state. “I can’t believe how much time I’ve wasted,” he complained. “I _hate_ wasting time.”

Sid began to laugh so hard that he had to put his glass down. Sullivan pulled away, frowning at his reaction. “’M sorry,” Sid gasped. “...Sorry. It’s just...the way you said it, and this little thing in your voice, like you were whining...and...Jesus, that was funny...”

It took him a second to replay what had set Sid off, but then Sullivan saw the humor, too. “I did sound as if I was about five years old, didn’t I?” he allowed, smiling.

“’I _hate_ wasting time,’” Sid falsettoed, and collapsed into mirth once again. “Teasing,” he managed to get out. “Only teasing. ‘Cause it’s true, you do hate that...miracle you’re such a natural at cuddling, really...no complaints, just saying...”

“Yes,” Sullivan rolled his eyes. “It was very amusing.”

“Don’t be mad.” Sid was clearly making a heroic effort to rein himself in. “...Don’t be mad,” he repeated, and reached out almost exactly as Selene had in Sullivan’s dream. Sid’s expression was contrite rather than come-hither, but that didn’t make it any less magnetic. “C’mon, let me make up for-” Sullivan was already in his arms. “...That was easy. You’re not mad?”

“No.” It was going to take more time for him to get used to teasing than it had for him to adjust to cuddling, apparently, but he knew Sid hadn’t been making fun of him. And it _had_ been funny, though perhaps not as funny as Sid had found it. “I don’t know that I’ve ever truly been mad at you, Sidney Carter. Whatever I might have told myself and the world to the contrary.”

“Forget policework, then. You should’ve gone on the stage.”

Sid’s tone was factual and carried no upset. As such, Sullivan said nothing in response. He did, however, give in to an urge to nuzzle the skin just beyond Sid’s collar. Vanilla, spruce, a hint of clove, and was that...Mrs. McCarthy's Christmas gravy? Maybe he’d spilled a bit, or just eaten so much of it that the aroma was now leaking from his pores. Smell, Sullivan had read, was closely tied to taste. He wondered...

“Ohh,” Sid moaned as his throat was subjected to a tiny lick. “...Bloody hell, you _are_ a natural at cuddling. Though it’s not gonna stay cuddling for long if you keep doing that.”

“Just an experiment,” Sullivan whispered. “The positive result has been duly noted.”

“Better have been noted. You’re supposed to repeat experiments a bunch of times, though, aren’t you?”

Sullivan chuckled. “Yes. Perhaps we’ll do further research on that topic in a little while.” There were plenty of other places on Sid he’d like to put his tongue, too. How many similar tests could he string together, one after the other, he wondered?

“Good. But then,” Sid continued, suddenly bitter, “I doubt you’ll want to do much of anything once I start sniffling again. It’s not a sexy sound. And I don’t think I’d be able to give our first time the attention it deserves if I’m as stuffed up for it as I am right now.”

Sullivan lifted his head quickly. “I didn’t notice that you’d stopped sniffling,” he rued. Everything must have started to build back up again while Sid was having his laughing fit. “What will help? Steam? You mentioned steam before.” He stood up. “I’ll put the kettle on. Wasn’t it cloves that you said Mrs. McCarthy uses?” That would explain the faint spice that he’d detected on Sid’s skin. “I think I have some, somewhere...”

“Wait...” A hand closed on Sullivan’s wrist before he could venture out of reach. He turned back to find Sid peering up at him. “...Wait. It’ll wait. I was just complaining. Don’t go.”

“Sid, you’re all congested again. I know it’s uncomfortable.” Sullivan reached out with his free hand and brushed his thumb over the thin lines that were radiating from the corner of one eye. “I can see it in your face. We can fix it-”

“You _can’t_ fix it,” Sid spat. “Nobody can. I told you that before.” His tone gentled. “And I know you were listening, ‘cause you remember about the steam and the cloves.” He pulled a now-unresisting Sullivan back down to the sofa. “So since you can’t fix it, and since it’s gonna clog up again when I lay down anyway, let’s just keep doing what we were doing.” When Sullivan didn’t lean back into him, Sid’s eyebrows rose. “...What?”

“...I’m sorry.” His voice was waterier than he’d thought it would be when he finally managed to get his apology out. “I’m so sorry...”

“Sorry? What for?”

“For everything. For me, before. For _him.”_ Sullivan gestured at the center of his face just as Sid had last night, when he’d first shared the why of his incessant sniffling. “For you, and your childhood friends. For the hunger. For all of it, Sid.” He shook his head, his eyes hot and damp. “None of it was right. None of it was fair. None of it was _deserved._ And-”

“-And none of it was your fault.” Cut off, Sullivan blinked at him. “Well, no, alright, a bit of it was your fault,” Sid allowed. “But not the big things. And I don‘t figure you meant half the stuff that _was_ you. As for any of it you _did_ mean at the time...” He smiled. “Y‘ve already made up for that, and then some.”

“The debt runs the other way?” asked Sullivan, repeating what Sid had said the night before in reference to Lady Felicia. “...Already?”

“Yeah. It does.”

“I don’t see how.”

A sigh. “Do you _need_ to see how?”

“I...” Sullivan frowned. “...I don’t know.” Sid didn‘t know the half of what he’d done for Sullivan, and Sullivan couldn‘t imagine what would not only balance those scales, but leave them weighted in his favor. It felt like a Pandora’s Box of a question, though, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to open it if he didn’t have to. Kate Wrobel’s words about the difference between hiding one’s actions and hiding one’s self rose in the back of his mind. He knew, or was quickly getting to know, who Sid was now; did it really matter what he’d done before?

Sid shrugged. “Well, you _are_ the sort who needs to know things, to see things, generally speaking. But so’s the Father, and he’s never pushed on that count. Not saying that you can’t, if you really need to, just that I might not be able to explain it very well. I don’t have any practice with it.

“Anyway, you don’t have to decide tonight.” He glanced at the fire, which had collapsed into coals and ash some time before. “There’re better things we could do, instead. I mean, cuddling in front of a fire’s nice and all, but cuddling in bed...”

Sullivan had to laugh at the sudden shift in the tone of their conversation. Enough with the heavy stuff, Sid was saying; let’s have a bit of fun. “You know, I think I’m starting to see why Kate Wrobel is still half in love with you.”

“Did she say that?”

“More or less, yes.”

A sad smile crossed Sid’s lips. “Shame about Katie. She’s not a bad person. Except for all the murdering, I mean.” He sighed. “I was really hoping that the Father was wrong this time. About her.”

Catching sight of Sullivan’s skeptical expression, Sid broadened his smile into a grin. “But don't worry. I promise I won’t be thinking of her while it’s you kissing me.”

“I'm not worried about that.” Sullivan moved in, pressed their lips together, and didn’t let up until Sid squeezed his arm to signal a need for oxygen. “...I simply intend to ensure that when I’m kissing you, you’re kissed so thoroughly that there isn’t room for any other thought in your head.”

“Bloody copper,” Sid murmured, “taking my breath away. Teasing,” he added before Sullivan’s eyes could finish widening. “...Teasing you.”

Just for that, Sullivan reached up and kissed him again.


	6. I'll Thrill Again To See Your Face

At first, Sullivan thought there was no one home at the presbytery. He’d knocked twice but had received no answer. Just as he was about to turn away and try the church, though, the echo of footsteps reached his ears. Adjusting the basket in his arms – it was heavy just with the empty dishes in it, so it was no wonder that Sid had worked up a bit of an appetite carrying it over full last night – he waited.

Father Brown’s smile was one of pleasant surprise. “Inspector,” he greeted, stepping back to let him in from the cold. “What perfect timing. I was just about to take a little break from my homily and make a cup of tea. Would you care to join me?”

“Ah...” Sullivan dithered. He could have dispatched any one of the constables to return the dishes; bringing them himself had just been an excuse to see Sid for a minute. As he followed the priest into the kitchen, however, it became obvious that they were alone. He’d much rather take what he’d brought for the other man and go find him, wherever he was.

But if he was serious about trying to live a less isolated life, he had to start willingly taking tea in company with others somewhere and sometime. Doing so with one of the three people in Kembleford who might well hunt him down if he broke Sid’s heart would be an extreme first try, but at least every tea he took for the rest of his life was guaranteed to be less difficult than this one. Besides, he realized as he caught the penetrating look Father Brown had fixed him with, the offer had only half been a question. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Lovely. Please, just set the basket down on the counter and have a seat. Don’t worry about unpacking it; Mrs. McCarthy has a very particular way she likes the dishes put away, so it’s best if I do it. Even if,” he laughed, “I still get it wrong on occasion.”

Sullivan put the basket down, then hesitated. He’d tucked the item he’d brought for Sid in with the rest of the crockery, a decision for which he was now kicking himself. It was best if the gift, or at least its source, remained a secret. He supposed he didn’t have to remove it right now, if the basket was just going to sit on the counter. Maybe the priest would step away for a minute and leave him clear to sneak the present back outside. Biting the inside of his cheek, he took a chair at the table.

When the kettle had been started, Father Brown occupied the seat across from him. “Sid tells me that congratulations are in order.”

Sullivan blanched. They hadn’t discussed telling anyone anything about yesterday, or this morning, or all the days and weeks and (Sullivan hoped) months and years to come. It wasn’t the sort of thing it was safe to share, even with one’s nearest and dearest. “I...I’m sorry?”

“Your arrest of the Wrobels. I think that was one of the most exciting tales I’ve ever heard told over a Christmas dinner.”

“...Oh.” Oh, thank God. “Yes, well...I was glad not to have spent the night out in the cold pointlessly. And to close the case, of course.”

“Of course. Mr. Kilmer’s family will be glad to know that his killer – or killers, as it turned out – have been caught.”

“Assuming we can _find_ any family for him,” said Sullivan. Ronald Kilmer’s apparent lack of both kith and kin had been a complication from the very beginning. Had that complication, it suddenly occurred to Sullivan, played a role in bringing his own social isolation up to the surface for examination? He’d have to give that some thought later. “Or for any of the others.”

“Sid _did_ mention that there might have been other victims. But I understand if-” A low whistling from the direction of the kettle cut him off. “...If you can’t share that information,” Father Brown continued as he moved to stop the sound.

Sullivan didn't respond to that, but instead just answered the priest’s inquiries regarding sugar and milk. The contents of the clearing beyond the Wrobel house was only being shared on a need-to-know basis, not just because they weren’t done digging but because what they’d already found was likely to make the front pages in London, and possibly even abroad. They didn’t even know for sure yet how many total victims there were, let alone who they had once been. It would be unprofessional of him to pass any of the facts he had on to a civilian.

Trying to keep the knowledge from Father Brown would be useless, though. The man had too many ears all over the village for anything of real importance to remain a secret from him for long. Besides, one of his closest confidants was now Sullivan’s, too. “...Seven, so far,” he said quietly as a cup of tea was set before him.

The number was high enough to give the priest pause. _“Seven?”_ He settled slowly back into his chair, then crossed himself. His lips moved for a moment in silent prayer. “And you believe there will be more?”

“Yes. The Wrobels seem to have been doing this for a long time. Years.”

“Let me see...” Father Brown gazed into the distance as he thought. “They were married eight or nine years ago, I believe...yes, that’s right. Almost as soon as Arvin returned from the war. But I don’t think they hired in field help for the first few years. Of course they might have,” he allowed, returning his attention to Sullivan. “But Sid wasn’t here to know about it then, and I don’t have the access to news from outlying areas that he does.” A beat passed. “...They _were_ all field hands, weren’t they? Men who were just passing through?”

Sullivan frowned. “How do you know that?” Sid had suggested field hands on their walk yesterday morning, but Sullivan hadn’t shared the details of Kate Wrobel’s confession with him later on. As such, he’d had no of knowing if his suspicions were proven correct. Then again, a lack of information sharing by the police had never stopped the presbytery crew from coming to frustratingly correct conclusions before.

“I didn’t know. I was only hoping – praying, really – that no one who lived in the area had been found. As terrible as everything the Wrobels have done is, it would have been much harder to deal with had a local family lost someone.”

“...Your own, for instance?” asked Sullivan, sipping his tea.

Father Brown’s eyebrows rose. “...Inspector?”

“I know Sid was...involved...with Kate Wrobel for a period of time.”

“...Ah. Yes. I confess that I was less than delighted when he began to grow close to her.”

“Well, she _is_ a married woman. It would have been odd for you to support what he was doing.”

“True, although I would point out that Mrs. Wrobel was also far from innocent on that count. Adultery is a sin of complicity. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. No,” he went on as Sullivan tried not to choke, “while the moral implications of their relationship certainly bothered me, I was far more concerned about his physical safety. Extramarital liaisons often end in violence against one party or another, as I’m sure you know from your work.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that priests were allowed to be more concerned with people’s physical safety than with their spiritual wellbeing,” Sullivan said as mildly as he could manage with mis-swallowed tea still tickling his throat.

“There are some who would be scandalized by that idea,” Father Brown concurred. “But at least the living still have time to repent. The dead, especially those taken without warning, are robbed of that opportunity.” He paused. “I’m sorry that anyone died at the hands of the Wrobels. But I am exceedingly grateful that they restricted themselves to strangers.”

“They were quite smart about it. From what Kate Wrobel said, it seems that Carter-” it felt strange to call him that when they’d been in each other’s arms and very much on a first-name basis only hours before, but needs must, “-was the only person she ever cheated with, besides the murdered workers.”

Hearing what had just come out of his mouth, Sullivan put his cup down and met Father Brown’s startled gaze. “...I didn’t mean to say that. Or rather, to say it quite like that.” He’d made it sound like the couple had planned on making Sid their first local victim. “And I thought you might already have an idea of what the Wrobels were doing. Why they were doing it. Their, ah...shared passion.”

The Father shook his head. “Until Sid mentioned that there seemed to be several graves in the woods, I had no idea that anyone besides Ronald Kilmer had been killed. But I’m not surprised to hear that there was a seduction element to the deaths.”

“You’re...you’re not?”

“No, I’m not. As I mentioned, Inspector, I’ve worried every time Sid has involved himself with a married woman. But those weeks he spent in Kate Wrobel’s company gave me more than one moment of real fear. There is something about her, about the way she looks at men, that has always struck me as dangerous. That’s why, when it became clear that one of the Wrobels had to be the murderer, I was sure that it was her, though I couldn’t put my finger on her exact motive.”

“She never had any plans to hurt him,” Sullivan assured. “She said she was upset when Carter broke things off, but that she still cares for him, even now.” Would it help or hurt to share what Kate had said about Arvin’s jealousy? Neither of the Wrobels would be walking free in the world ever again, so he supposed that there was no reason why the information should cause Father Brown any additional concern. And as Sid had pointed out last night, the priest, like Sullivan himself, had an inborn need to know, to see. “She protected him from her husband, in fact. Arvin wanted to go after him when he found out about the affair. Kate convinced him not to.”

“...She told you all of this?”

“Yes. She did. Last night.”

“And does Sid know what she said?”

“No. But I know he didn’t want it to be Kate who had killed Ronald Kilmer. Not because he wanted to be with her again,” he added as the priest’s eyes narrowed. “I think he just likes her as a person, the same way she does him.” What was it, exactly, that Sid had said last night? “She’s ‘not a bad person, except for all the murdering,’” he quoted.

The Father surprised Sullivan with a chuckle. “...Sidney,” he murmured, all affectionate chastisement. “Well, perhaps I’ll bring it up to him later. Hearing that a proven serial murderer almost came after him might be enough to keep him away from the already taken, at least for a little while.” He stood up. “Will you have another cup, Inspector? Or do you have to get back to work?”

Sullivan had to admit that this tea was proving far less painful than he’d expected. Plus, he couldn’t leave until he’d sneaked Sid’s gift out of the basket on the counter. “I have time, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” After he’d served the second round, Father Brown remained standing. “Don’t let my activity be a distraction,” he urged. “Mrs. McCarthy will be here in half an hour or so, and I don’t want her to have to deal with the unpacking. I know Sid was worried she’d sent too much last night, but it seems to have vanished without much delay.”

Oh, no. Sullivan winced as the basket’s lid was lifted. The extra item inside was right on top, in the corner closest to Father Brown’s dominant hand. But he’d said he didn’t always remember where things went, and every dish from the presbytery other than the cups and saucers they were using for tea must have been sent along to the station. Maybe if Sullivan just kept talking the priest would assume that the pot did, in fact, belong in the kitchen and tuck it away in some dark corner. All the Inspector would have to do then was watch where it was put and tell Sid how to find it later.

“Yes,” he replied, “the men were all very appreciative.” This was not a lie. He and Sid had barely managed to fit everything into the station’s refrigerator the night before, and Sullivan had passed the news about the edible bounty to Sergeant Goodfellow when they’d arranged their shift swap on the phone. Barely twelve hours later, the flurry of officers called in from Kembleford’s own roster and sent out from Gloucester to begin excavating the clearing had emptied every single dish. “Please pass along our thanks to Mrs. McCarthy.”

“I’ll be sure to do so.” Father Brown was stacking the dishes up on the counter, apparently intending to get them all in sight before he began putting them away. “I hope you were able to enjoy at least part of your Christmas, when you weren’t busy with the Wrobels?”

Glad that the Father’s back was to him, Sullivan gulped. Enjoyment wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the eventual end to his Christmas Day. A hot shared shower, during which Sullivan had learned that an actual fingertip tripping along his stomach was much better than the corner of a bar of soap could ever be, had cleared Sid's nose enough to let them move well beyond cuddling. Against the bathroom wall wasn’t where Sullivan would have preferred to consummate their relationship, but the warm, moist air in the confined space had allowed his partner to completely forget about his congestion for a little while, and that was all that really mattered.

Afterward, tangled together under the sheets, there had been whispers and tickling and an attempt to go for round two before the sniffles set back in. They’d had to give that idea up, but at least it had led into a bout of spooning that had put the Inspector to sleep so fast that he barely remembered Sid’s arm wrapping around his waist. This morning had felt like the real holiday, because Sullivan had woken up, stretched one hand out behind him, and found warm flesh instead of empty space. “...Yes. I had a very nice Christmas, despite all the unpleasantness that came before it. Thank you.”

“Wonderful. We wouldn’t have wanted your first Christmas in Kembleford to be miserable. Or any of them, for that matter – and if I may say so, Inspector, I hope there will be many more – but especially not the first.”

“No, no, it...certainly wasn’t that.”

Sullivan rather lost track of the conversation then, because the pile of dishes on the counter was dwindling. Soon all that was left was the massive bowl the stuffing had been sent along in and the Delft blue container that looked like a cross between a large inkwell and Aladdin’s lamp. Father Brown also let their talk falter as he considered these items. “I’m reasonably confident that the bowl goes behind half of the other things I just put away,” he said. “But I don’t recall having ever seen this little pot before.”

Don’t, Sullivan silently pleaded, don’t look inside, don’t see... But it was too late. Father Brown made a small sound of discovery, then began to pull out the folded piece of paper that Sullivan had slipped inside the pot. It was impossible to see his face from the table, but it was obvious when he paused partway through his extraction. “Ah. I don’t recall having seen it before because I haven't.” Holding the pot in both hands, he turned around and set it on the table beside Sullivan’s teacup. “I assume you intended to give this...item...to Sid in person rather than to simply have it passed on by myself or Mrs. McCarthy?”

He knew his face was flaming. Why, why had he written Sid’s name – his first name, in fact, all by itself, and at this rate why didn’t he just climb onto the church roof and shout the drastic shift in their relationship status for the entire village to hear? – on the outside of the explanation he’d copied out before he came over to the presbytery? “Yes,” he managed. “I did.”

Sullivan could see the pieces clicking together in Father Brown’s head. Damn it. But then, just as with the information about the additional bodies that had been found, would it really have done any good in the long run to try and keep the priest out of the loop? Maybe it was better this way. After all, as he’d discovered last night, a fair number of things in life were better Sid’s way.

“...Would it be too much if I were to ask what-”

“No,” Sullivan cut him off. “No. You might as well ask, now that you'll know where it came from when you see it with him, or in the caravan, or wherever.” Sighing heavily, he went on. “It’s called a Neti pot. It’s for nasal irrigation. My parents spent some time in India before I was born, and my mother became very interested in the local practices. She apparently swore by the Neti process even when she wasn’t congested, and insisted on doing it every day until...well. She was a strong advocate for it.

“I’ve never done it myself, but I remembered that I had the pot and some notes of hers on its use. I thought it might help with the insufferable sniffling he did the entire time we were watching the Wrobel house.” Sullivan flinched when he called Sid’s snuffles insufferable. They had been at first, yes, but now that he knew why they were necessary they were just pitiful. Maybe a Harley Street doctor wouldn’t have prescribed an Ayurvedic cure, but Sullivan was going to suggest any and every thing he came across that seemed likely to offer a little relief. He only wished he’d thought of the Neti pot before Sid had left the police cottage that morning.

The priest was still studying him, now even more intently than he had been before. “...He told you what happened,” he stated, gesturing to his face in what was evidently the universal Kemblefordian symbol for nose. “When? On your watch together?”

“Good _God,_ man,” said Sullivan, raising one hand to his temple, “does _anything_ that happens in this town escape your almost immediate notice?”

Father Brown smiled. “I try to keep informed. The more I know, the more I can help. Although the situation with the Wrobels has made me wonder if I’m beginning to lose my touch.”

“You’re not, so I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.” Sullivan’s gaze fell to the Neti pot. “...He did tell me,” he verified, his tone moving from exasperation to dismay. “And it made me feel like a complete bastard.”

“You aren’t the policeman who hit him, Inspector.”

“I know. That’s what he said, too. But I still wish I could undo it, or at least the aftereffects.”

“I’m sure he will appreciate your effort,” said Father Brown gently. “Regardless of its efficacy.”

Sullivan glanced up at him. “Yes, well...thank you for saying that. I’m sure you’re right.” A beat passed. “...But it had better help.” For one thing, he would probably lose his mind if he had to go to bed for the next three or four weeks knowing that Sid was going to wake up (alone most of the time, which made it even worse) in the morning with those uncomfortable lines around his eyes. For another, he wasn’t sure he could wait that long to move their lovemaking out of the steamed-up bathroom. Some of the things he urgently wanted to try just weren’t meant to be done on slippery tile.

“My prayers will certainly be behind it doing so. Now we just need to get it to him, and preferably sooner rather than later.”

“...Where is he, anyway?“ Sullivan asked. “I thought he would be here. Didn’t Lady Felicia spend the holiday in London?”

“She did, and she was gracious enough to take the train so that we could keep Sid. She’s coming back this afternoon – I believe she arrived just a few minutes ago, in fact – and he’s gone to drive her home. There’s no telling what time he’ll make it back here, since so much has happened in Lady Felicia’s absence and she’ll certainly want to be apprised of it all. But if it gets to be too late, I could always call up to Montague House and say that you came by needing his help to fill in a few holes.”

Had Sullivan been drinking at that moment, he would have nearly choked again. “There are things that I could stand to clarify for the files,” he said instead. “That's the reason I was looking for him, anyway. The files. The Neti pot was only an addendum.”

Father Brown nodded gravely. “Of course. And the return of the dishes, as well. Very efficient of you.”

Sullivan rose and gathered his coat and gift. “Well...thank you for the tea, Father Brown.”

“Not at all. I hope you’ll come again sometime soon; I enjoyed our talk.”

“Ah...yes. Yes.” Just as the priest was about to open the door and let him back out into the cold, Sullivan paused. “There is one thing I’m curious about, Father.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You knew Carter’s history with Kate Wrobel. You felt that she might be dangerous. But you still sent him out to watch her house the night before last.”

“...I think you can just call him Sid in front of me from now on, Inspector, since you already refer to him as such in private.” He nodded towards the pot in Sullivan’s gloved hands, then went on. “And to answer your question, he insisted on going out that night to stand watch.”

“He...insisted?”

“Yes. At the time I thought he trying to preempt Mrs. McCarthy pushing him to come to Mass. She knows he won’t attend, but she can’t help trying every Christmas and Easter. He made an excellent argument, saying that he thought you would take the Christmas Eve shift by yourself. His exact words were a little different – something about a martyr complex, if I recall correctly – but I know he expressed a concern that your lack of previous experience with the Wrobels and your, ah, urban approach to the woods could make it perilous for you to be alone if they made a move or happened to see you.” A beat passed. “I’m sure he meant it all kindly, of course.”

Sullivan snorted. “Of course.” Brat. He turned to go, then paused once more as he caught sight of a familiar trench coat hanging behind the door. “And when he insisted on going, you...insisted he wear that?”

“Well...it was far too cold for him to sit outside for hours in anything of his own. Besides,” Father Brown’s voice softened as he reached past Sullivan to straighten one of the coat’s sleeves, “this coat saw me safely through some very difficult and dangerous moments. As unorthodox as it sounds, I could find no good reason not to hope that it might do the same for him, should the need arise.”

All Sullivan could do was nod. He doubted his own father would give him the time of day, let alone pressure him into wearing a talismanic coat out of concern for his safety. “...I see. Well...” He cleared his throat. “Thank you again, Father Brown.”

“You’re very welcome. Oh, and Inspector?” Father Brown’s parting smile was warm and open. “I meant what I said earlier. Do come by again soon. Any time. Please.”

“I...I will.” And as he heard the presbytery door close behind him, Sullivan realized that he meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> Titling the chapters of this story inspired me to write the following short poem:
> 
> On this hill you bare your sorrows;  
> Through the night I give you chase.  
> Whatever happens on the morrow,  
> This evening I must have a taste.  
> And if we wake up warm and happy,  
> I'll thrill again to see your face.


End file.
